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The Annotated TARP Application

In his August 2009 Editor's Letter, Graydon Carter takes aim at the U.S. government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, which has outlaid nearly $550 billion to bail financial institutions out of their own mess. To get their slice of the pie, these banks had to fill out a two-pageform with just* 20 questions.* V.F. reporter-researcher Matt Kapp decodes this remarkably basic document, which makes a food-stamp application look like the Oxford English Dictionary.